The Year's Best Science Fiction 9

I hung up, sat, thought. The crazy idea came back and exploded.

A bunch of characters from outer space, say they want Earth. They want it for a colony, for a vacation resort, who the hell knows what they want it for? They got their reasons. They’re strong enough and advanced enough to come right down and take over. But they don’t want to do it cold. They need a legal leg.

All right. These characters from outer space, maybe all they had to have was a piece of paper from just one genuine, accredited human being, signing the Earth over to them. No, that couldn’t be right. Any piece of paper? Signed by any Joe Jerk?

I jammed a dime into the telephone and called Ricardo’s college. He wasn’t in. I told the switchboard girl it was very important: she said, all right, she’d ring around and try to spot him.

All that stuff. I kept thinking, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sea of Azov—they were as much a part of the hook as the twenty-for-a-five routine. There’s one sure test of what an operator is really after: when he stops talking, closes up shop and goes away.

With Eksar, it had been the Earth. All that baloney about extra rights on the Moon! They were put in to cover up the real thing he was after, for extra bargaining power.

That’s how Eksar had worked on me. It was like he’d made a special study of how I operate. From me alone, he had to buy.

But why me?

All that stuff on the receipt, about my equity, about my professional capacity, what the hell did it mean? I don’t own Earth; I’m not in the planet-selling business. You have to own a planet before you can sell it. That’s law.

So what could I have sold Eksar? I don’t own any real estate. Are they going to take over my office, claim the piece of sidewalk I walk on, attach the stool in the diner where I have my coffee?

That brought me back to my first question. Who was this “they”? Who the holy hell were “they”?

The switchboard girl finally dug up Ricardo. He was irritated. “I’m in the middle of a faculty meeting, Bernie. Call you back?”

“Just listen a second,” I begged. “I’m in something, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I’ve got to have some advice.”

Talking fast—I could hear a lot of bigshot voices in the background—I ran through the story from the time I’d called him in the morning. What Eksar looked like and smelted like, the funny portable color-TV he had, the way he’d dropped all those Moon rights and gone charging off once he’d been sure of the Earth. What Morris Burlap had said, the suspicions I’d been building up, everything. “Only thing is,” I laughed a little to show that maybe I wasn’t really serious about it, “who am I to make such a deal, huh7”

He seemed to be thinking hard for a while. “I don’t know, Bernie, it’s possible. It does fit together. There’s the UN aspect.”

“UN aspect? Which UN aspect?”

“The UN aspect of the situation. The—uh—study of the UN on which we collaborated two years ago.” He was using double talk because of the college people around him. But I got it, I got it.

Eksar must have known all along about the deal that Ricardo had thrown my way, getting rid of old, used-up office equipment for the United Nations here in New York. They’d given me what they called an authorizing document. In a file somewhere there was a piece of paper, United Nations stationery, saying that I was their authorized sales agent for surplus, secondhand equipment and installations.

Talk about a legal leg!

“You think it’ll stand up?” I asked Ricardo. “I can see how the Earth is secondhand equipment and installations. But surplus?”

“International law is a tangled field, Bernie. And this might be even more complex. You’d be wise to do something about it.”

“But what? What should I do, Ricardo?”

“Bernie,” he said, sounding sore as hell, “I told you I’m in a faculty meeting, damn it! A faculty meeting!” And he hung up.

I ran out of the drugstore like a wild man and grabbed a cab back to Eksar’s hotel.

What was I most afraid of? I didn’t know: I was so hysterical. This thing was too big-time for a little guy like me, too damn dangerously big-time. It would put my name up in lights as the biggest sellout sucker in history. Who could ever trust me again to make a deal? I had the feeling like somebody had asked me to sell him a snapshot, and I’d said sure, and it turned out to be a picture of the Nike Zeus, you know, one of those top-secret atomic missiles. Like I’d sold out my country by mistake. Only this was worse: I’d sold out my whole goddamn world. I had to buy it back—I had to!

When I got to Eksar’s room, I knew he was about ready to check out. He was shoving his funny portable TV in one of those cheap leather grips they sell in chain stores. I left the door open, for the light.

“We made our deal,” he said. “It’s over. No more deals.”

I stood there, blocking his way. “Eksar,” I told him, “listen to what I figured out. First, you’re not human. Like me, I mean.”

“I’m a hell of a lot more human than you, buddy boy.”

“Maybe. But you’re not from Earth—that’s my point. Why you need Earth—”

“I don’t need it. I’m an agent. I represent someone.”

And there it was, straight out, you are right, Morris Burlap! I stared into his fish eyes, now practically pushing into my face. I wouldn’t get out of the way. “You’re an agent for someone,” I repeated slowly. “Who? What do they want Earth for?”

“That’s their business. I’m an agent. I just buy for them.”

“You work on a commission?”

“I’m not in business for my health.”

You sure as hell aren’t in it for your health, I thought. That cough, those tics and twitches —Then I realized what they meant. This wasn’t the kind of air he was used to. Like if I go up to Canada, right away I’m down with diarrhea. It’s the water or something.

The dirt on his face was a kind of suntan oil! A protection against our sunlight. Blinds pulled down, face smeared over—and dirt all over his clothes so they’d fit in with his face.

Eksar was no bum. He was anything but. I was the bum. Think fast, Bernie, I said to myself. This guy took you, and big!

“How much you work on—ten percent?” No answer: he leaned against me, and he breathed and he twitched. “I’ll top any deal you have, Eksar. You know what I’ll give you? Fifteen percent! I hate to see a guy running back and forth for a lousy ten percent.”

“What about ethics?” he said hoarsely. “I got a client.”

“Look who’s bringing up ethics! A guy goes out to buy the whole damn Earth for twenty-seven hundred! You call that ethics?”

Now he got sore. He set down the grip and punched his fist into his hand. “No, I call that business. A deal. I offer, you take. You go away happy, you feel you made out. All of a sudden, here you are back, crying you didn’t mean it, you sold too much for the price. Too bad! I got ethics: I don’t screw my client for a crybaby.”

“I’m not a crybaby. I’m just a poor schnook trying to scratch out a living. Here, I’m up against a big-time operator from another world with all kinds of angles and gimmicks going for him.” i

“You had these angles, these gimmicks, you wouldn’t use them?”

“Certain things I wouldn’t do. Don’t laugh, Eksar, I mean it. I wouldn’t hustle a guy in an iron lung. I wouldn’t hustle a poor schnook with a hole-in-the-wall office to sell out his entire planet.”

“You really sold,” he said. “That receipt will stand up anywhere. And we got the machinery to make it stand up. Once my client takes possession, the human race is finished, it’s kaput, forget about it. And you’re Mr. Patsy.”